Monday, May 30, 2016

Lefties seem to see the gun as a very powerful fetish in the Voodoo sense of the work, capable of inspiring not only the bearers, but anyone near one to great deeds of both unspeakable sociopathy. Of course this view is radically reversed if the "right people" are the ones wielding the guns and all the bad things are the result of the "wrong people" getting their hands on one. This also seems to be the case for socialism which only fails when the "wrong people" are using it.

"Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun." Our principle is that the Party commands the gun, and the gun must never be allowed to command the Party.
Mao

The U.S. Second Amendment wea written to do precisely that. This is the part that bothers the libs.

Looking around I'm not seeing guns turning otherwise reasonable people into sociopaths, at least not in any quantity. Most stories about people like this seem to suggest that they were sociopathic well before touching a gun. Now if you're really looking for an inanimate object that magically turns other wise reasonable people into psychotic scofflaws, forget about guns.

Tuesday, May 24, 2016

...Moody’s
Analytics is forecasting that the Democratic nominee, who is
widely expected to be Hillary Clinton, will win the presidency
in November over presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump...
Moody’s latest model shows for the third straight month that the
Democratic nominee would take 332 electoral votes compared with
206 for the Republican nominee. The model has predicted every
election correctly since it was created in 1980... (Back in
1921, commenting on the national prohibition of alcoholic
beverages in the US, Albert Einstein observed, “The prestige of
government has undoubtedly been lowered considerably by the
prohibition law. For nothing is more destructive of respect for
the government and the law of the land than passing laws which
cannot be enforced. It is an open secret that the dangerous
increase of crime in the United States is closely connected with
this.”)

I bought S&W and Ruger way back when and my esteemed financial advisor convinced me to unload them just before they finally took off. Just because you missed the 700-1000% increases under BHO doesn't mean you have to miss the big jump under Hillary.

When your country is running out of other people's money, one of the things you do is make holding foreign currency illegal Holding foreign currency after all suggests that the T.P. you are printing may not have much exchange value.

If your native industries need raw materials from another country, it's considered polite to use that other country's currency to buy the stuff. Case in point is Venezuela's biggest brewer who buys malted hops from the U.S., or used to. Since it's illegal to own U.S. dollars, they can't buy the hops and so can't brew beer so they closed down. El Presedente thinks this is outrageous and is threatening to nationalize the brewery and jail the management if they don't get back into production. Nobody has told him that it was his policies that shut the brewery down in the first place.

Maybe if he stands on a balcony, waves his hands, and screams "Free malted hops!" the problem will be solved.

Ever look at someone and immediately get a feeling, good or bad, because there was "something about them" that triggered feelings within you? It would seem that this is a valid trait and up to now no one has looked into what the trigger is but given enough computing power, sources can be identified and correlations can be extracted.

The one country in the world with the most to gain from being able to identify shifty people, Israel, has developed software that can look at a photo of a person and identify certain characteristics with about 80% certainty. Of course with a 20% false positive rate one might also expect a similar false negative rate so for every terrorist/pedophile/lying politician that gets improperly identified, I would expect one to get through. Still, if the first 60% get caught, the remainder would be discouraged from trying.

No word as to other applications such as filtering Mr. or Miss Right out of the candidates at the singles bar.

Monday, May 23, 2016

The jury ruled that Cinemark could not be held liable in the mass shooting in Aurora that left 12 dead as they could not have been able to reasonably predict the actions of a madman.

Victims’ loss in a civil trial over whether an Aurora movie theater
should have done more to prevent a mass shooting leaves them with
dwindling options as they seek damages for their suffering.
Experts
say the loss Thursday to Cinemark may also have hurt the chances of
other survivors in the few remaining lawsuits stemming from the 2012
rampage.

The question of who needs to compensate the victims for their loss is unanswered although at $.25/hr, the shooter will be toiling in the prison system a good long time to cover much of that. Maybe it's just another rather large insurance claim and the price of a movie ticket will go up slightly to cover it.

I'm seeing the big winner in this as the anti-gun lobby as the judgement justifies the theater chain marking their venues as "no gun zones". This will keep theaters on the whack-o list of potential targets for the foreseeable future and without successful mass shootings, there can be little argument for gun bans.

Sunday, May 22, 2016

Last two shoots I've been to when picking up the brass I've noticed that S&B has some 9mm ammo that leaves the expended brass cleaner inside than mine is after lengthy exposure to the tumbler. In fact the fired brass looks like it has never been fired.

Questions: What are they using for powder, and when is this stuff going to hit the market for the rest of us?

Thursday, May 19, 2016

Sports Authority as most know is closing up shop and liquidating. They used to be Gart Brothers which for a long time was the sporting goods store here in Denver. I remember going there and seeing paper barrels full of .30 carbines priced at $25/ea. That was then.

When they sold to the conglomerate, the new management policy was that they would not carry anything shooting related. No guns, no ammo, no targets, nothing. That's when I quit buying anything from them.

I don't know if this had anything to do with the chain's decline, but I'd like to think so. Refusing to sell guns in the Obama administration is like MacDonalds refusing to sell burgers during lunch.

Tuesday, May 17, 2016

And you thought voting by people of questionable provenience was a problem. Some 32 states allow online voting under one circumstance or another so think about the news reports following the upcoming elections:

"Final results are in and Hillary Clinton has won in New York, California and 6 others while Donald Trump has carried Texas, Florida, and 8 other states. Unexpectedly some 32 states have been carried unanimously by Kim Jong-Un. As no one candidate has gotten the requisite 270 electoral votes, the contest now moves to the U.S. House where Mr. Kim is expected to garner only 10-15 votes, from some of the chambers more colorful members and a couple of @neverTrump, @NeverHillary die-hards."

The 9th circuit no less has ruled that the right to bear arms includes the right to buy and sell them tossing a county zoning ordinance that effectively banned gun sales throughout the county. If this case goes to the Supreme's, the 4-4 split would let the ruling stand and broadly suggest that similar ordinances in other locations (Cook Co, Il) might be unconstitutional.

Bill will be attacking the unemployment problem by opening a national chain with locations in every town with more than 100,000 residents. This will be called "Big Bill's Bootie Bar" and will be pretty much exactly what you've come to expect. Hiring will be done by dragging a Benjamin through the local trailer park with a maximum age limit of 25 and no minimum.

Hill's Attorney General has assured her that nothing that happens there rises to the level of a prosecutable criminal action so we needn't worry about anything. All records will be kept on a server securely located in an undisclosed, gender-neutral bathroom on an unspecified Caribbean island and the hard drive will be wiped every January 1st.

Operational costs will be claimed as business expenses for the Clinton Foundation

Monday, May 16, 2016

American Marksman informs me that my score qualifies me for the regional competition to be held at my gun club, Colorado Rifle Club in June.

The contest is like a Steel Challenge stage with IDPA scoring for hits outside the "A" zone. Looks like a nice format for an indoor steel challenge match.

I checked the scores from the others and it looks like being competitive for the grand prize involves doing 3 strings of this stage in under 13 seconds, including penalties. Classes are available for juniors, women, and 2 men's groups, neither one of which is for geezers. With a bit of practice I'm sure I could improve my score but being currently about 3 times the top competitors, I think I'll pass.

Sixteen years ago when the EU was being put together, Europe was made up of a bunch of economically protected, socialist little dutchys. They figured out that combining themselves into one big economically protected socialist duchy would be better somehow and did so with no monetary controls to speak of.

I thought this sounded like a recipe for disaster delayed, and sure enough, here it is. No currency discipline, no border controls, and endless regulations that protect incumbents and stifle innovation.

This video runs 71 minutes so don't watch if you can't spare the time, but it covers everything I thought wouldn't work. I found it to be well worth the time.

Saturday, May 14, 2016

Wednesday, May 4, 2016

I suppose if you want to get some face time in the papers and on NPR, this is one way to do it. A group has formed a PAC to try to discourage their political opponents from running for office so more of their people can get elected. No party name is given, so I'm anointing this group the Breakfast Party.

It's a question embedded in the name of the organization. The Can You Not PAC
plans to discourage straight white men from running for office in
Colorado's diverse districts. The hope is that will clear the lane from
female, minority and LGBTQ candidates.

They are asking for less White Bread and crackers so as to make way for such breakfast staples as Fruits, Nuts and Flakes.

Best of luck with that. If you can't provide political leadership, you should at least provide political humor. Lord knows we need more humor. No word as to the amount of pharmaceuticals and/or alcohol that went in to the planning for this either.

Tuesday, May 3, 2016

After taking a 19 point drubbing tonight, Ted Cruz has suspended his campaign. Cruz was my #4 pick from the 14 Republicans who jumped up figuring that the "inevitable" woman who had already lost to the worst president in the history of the country might be beatable. The possibility of multiple felony charges brought be the FBI and the NSA might help as well. As her closest advisor, she has the woman who married Anthony Wiener, complete with close family connections the the Muslim Brotherhood.

My first election was 1968. The Dem convention was a smashing success and if nothing else convinced me that I never wanted to live in Chicago. I voted 3rd party that year as the results were pretty much a forgone conclusion and from that election on I have been privileged to vote for a candidate exactly once. All other times I looked over the candidates and voted for the one I thought would do me the least damage. Sometimes my pick won but at this point I feel like the guy who won the demolition derby. Last car running but nothing you'd want to drive home.

You millennials out there; this is what you have to look forward to only for you it will happen much faster.

Monday, May 2, 2016

"I have a lot of experience dealing with men who sometimes get off the reservation in the way they behave,”

More like ignoring that behavior, but nevertheless, some Native Americans* from the Organization Of The Professionally Aggrieved became aggrieved and demanded an apology.

Valid point of course. She should have been speaking to her base and used the expression "Off the plantation" instead. Don't want to piss off the N.A. lobby, you might need to tap Elizabeth Warren for the Veep position.

This moment was, comparatively, a lull which is how I managed to get in the picture. Off the view to the left is ihe remains of a 220 lb class robot with 3/16 steel bodywork looking like it had narrowly escaped the car crusher. They finished 4th overall in the fighting robot competition.

Note the crest of the Denver Mad Scientists Club with the motto "Summas Scientes, Noli Hic Domi Temptare"* Extra credit if you can translate that.

Normally face painters don't interest me all that much as they seem to be limited to a bouquet of flowers or a cheesy unicorn. The one here was good:

I'm sorry i didn't get a pic of the tiger job, it was fantastic.

The show was primarily aimed at the kids so not so much the commercial booths aimed at the grown up Mad Scientists and inventors. Lots of interactive stuff.